Monday, August 15, 2011

BOOT at TRAVELtech 2011: Sydney August 29

Daily Deal Websites – A New Distribution Channel or A Flash In The Pan?

Wow, two years ago this sector hardly existed now it is white hot. Travel was slow to get on board – leaving the playing field to restaurants, spas and hairdressers - but not it is full steam ahead with several purpose built companies emerging and big incumbents getting also getting involved. Overview from industry analyst followed by panel discussion.

5 comments:

The biggest challenge emerging for Social Buying Platforms in Travel is consumer skepticism on what the true value of the hotel, flight or product actually is in comparison to the sell price.

We saw Scoopon go all over the top with their $599 offer to Phuket on Strategic Airlines telling consumers they were saving close to 70% off the "normal" price of $2300.When consumers starting questioning this normal price on Scoopon's FB page the posts started being deleted by Scoopon, only leaving those posts that praised the offer.

Who's jurisdiction do these businesses fall under? Retail Associations - ACCC? If they persist in smoke and mirrors on the real cost of the product then we'll probably see a highly publicised "outing" of these types of deals on ACA or Today Tonight - which would be a pity as there is room on the market for these types of SBP's - but they need to remember in a highly social world that if you start stretching the truth - something has got to break.

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